


The Only Inheritance is Grief

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: The Alienist (TV), The Alienist - Caleb Carr
Genre: Content Warning for Ethnic Slurs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I Had a Headcanon and I Ran With It, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Roma Laszlo Kreizler, Romani Laszlo Kreizler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: I've had a headcanon floating around: "What if the reason Laszlo gets so bent out of shape when Teddy casts aspersions on his heritage – to the point where he is willing to have his head rattled in a fist fight because he was called 'g*psy' – is because there’s really a grain of truth to the words? Laszlo is really an illegitimate son who is half-Romani."A potential case sees Laszlo unveiling another long-buried secret about his past.





	The Only Inheritance is Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for language -- use of "gypsy" and "zigeuner".

It is Roosevelt -- by way of a telephone call from Sara to the Kreizler residence -- who asks them to come.

“What do you mean?” John fumbles his way into his coat, slings the thick woolen scarf around his throat against the mean January wind. “What did Sara say? Are you sure he asked for the both of us?”

Laszlo burns with impatience, struggling with his heavy winter coat in the foyer -- his eyes brilliant with manic, golden sparks when they catch the light. “I have told you already,” he bites out, shrugging his way into the coat with an awkward lurch “Roosevelt asked for our presence -- both of us. There is a case he feels our insight can contribute some significant value to. Do you have your drawing kit?”

“Of course.” John hoists the portfolio in his arm. “But Laszlo --”

“Come, there is no time to lose.” 

And then Laszlo turns on his heel, is halfway out the door with the coat flapping open around him like a crow’s ungainly wings -- no gloves, no scarf to protect against the bite of winter -- before John catches him by the lapels, spins him round in the doorway, and deftly does up the broad black buttons of the overcoat with gentle hands.

“You are  _ wasting time _ , John.” There is an angry flush that blooms across Laszlo’s cheeks, one that has little to do with the bitter winter air that steals their breath. He casts about, eyeing the calash with Stevie mounted and fidgety in the seat.

“Roosevelt will wait the extra minute it takes you to do up your damned coat properly,” John grunts. But he obliges, following Laszlo into the relative cover of the calash, tugging the thick lap rug firmly across their knees. “Did Sara say what sort of case this was?”

“Missing children -- a brother and sister.” Laszlo leans into him as they careen around a narrow street corner. The wheels of the calash skid alarmingly over icy patches of rough cobblestones.

“For God’s sake, Stevie!”

“Sorry Mister Moore.” The flicker of mischief in Stevie’s eye when he risks a backward glance is anything but sorry. “Streets are a bit slick with all the snow.”

John grumbles, resettles himself on the seat with an arm around Laszlo’s shoulders, ostensibly for the sake of keeping them both upright and secure within the confines of the flying, rattling calash. “What does he want us for?”

“There was a witness.”

Stevie leaves them on the doorstep of the police headquarters, a fresh dusting of snow starting to drift from the heavy cloud cover. Sara is waiting for them in the vestibule -- her silhouette, all pale, round face and heavy skirts, immediately identifiable beyond the dappled glass -- pushes through the doors to meet them the moment they mount the steps.

“Thank you both for coming so quickly,” she has to raise her voice to be heard over the flash-pop of the camera capturing photographs, the racket of voices calling out greetings, crying protests, demands. Laughter from the uniformed men with their thumbs tucked into their belts. “The commissioner is in with him now.”

“The witness,” Laszlo presses her, his dark eyes keen. “What do we know?”

“A twelve-year-old boy. His name is James Dreyfus.” Sara leads them up the staircase, storming quickly past the patrolmen with her skirts gathered in her hands. “The mother is a laundress, father is a mason.” She pauses on the landing, spares a glance to be sure they have kept on her heels. “It’s the brother and sister that are missing -- Christian and Eleanor. Respectively six and three.”

“And you’re saying James witnessed their disappearance?” John frowns, unable to see how this all stacks up. What about this had necessitated the presence of Laszlo, much less himself, in Roosevelt’s office.

“Precisely.” Sara stops then, drawing them both into her little alcove with the roll-top desk and carefully polished typewriter, to finish her briefing. “James was left to watch over Christian and Eleanor while they played in the street. From what he’s told the commissioner, his siblings were kidnapped while he was held at knifepoint.”

John curses.

There is a bright, analytical gleam to Laszlo’s eyes, absorbing every bit of information Sara has thrown at them. Already building an idea of what they will be walking into, a picture of the scene laid out before them. “And the abductors?”

“Itinerants,” Sara says. “Gypsies.”

“He is lying.” 

“Laszlo,” John scoffs, taken aback by the conviction of Laszlo’s pronouncement. “You can’t just assume… I mean -- how could you possibly know that?” They have not even interviewed the boy, have hardly taken the time to examine facts -- Laszlo is never so rash, so heedless in dealing out judgment.

“I simply know it.” The alienist’s eyes slide away, one gloved hand suddenly grappling with the elbow of his atrophied right arm. And there is a haughty edge that rises, meets the firmness of Laszlo’s words and curves around the syllables. _ I know it to be so and you should simply accept this. _ “There is no case here for us.”

John knows the tone well, has caught the sharp cut of Laszlo’s eye more than once.

_ Do not argue with me. _

Sara does not have so much patience in the care and handling of Laszlo Kreizler. “You haven’t even spoken to the boy, Doctor Kreizler,” she protests.

“I don’t have to, in order to ascertain that much Miss Howard.” And it is not the winter air seeping through cracks around the windows that chills the air between them several degrees. There is a furrow of aggravation between Laszlo’s eyebrows, a tension at the edges of his tone. “Roma are not boogeymen. They do not snatch children from the streets.”

Unphased, implacable, Sara stares him down. “And we did not presume that boys could be snatched from the locked rooms of brothels, yet Japheth Drury did precisely that.”

John catches the way the slender, gloved fingers spasm -- clenching in the dark wool of Kreizler’s heavy overcoat. Pained. Frustrated. Laszlo hates to be wrong, but then, he has never jumped so swiftly to conclusions either.

“At least interview the boy, Laszlo,” John cajoles him softly.

He sees it -- Laszlo winding up, the fight boiling beneath the surface -- but the alienist snaps out “fine. You wish an interview to be conducted? John, come with me.” And, seizing John by the arm, he barrels through the door into Roosevelt’s office, ignoring the cacophony of protests. “Enough of this, Roosevelt. Let’s not beat around the bush, shall we?”

Theodore is instantly on his feet, out from behind the wide commissioner’s desk, his expression thunderous.

“Kreizler, what in the name of --?”

Sara silences him with a single, wide-eyed look.

Bundled in his greatcoat, made out all in dark and somber colors, Laszlo paces before them like a caged animal -- short, quick steps, the line of his shoulders drawn up rigid and angry. In the chair before him, James Dreyfus is dour-faced, watching warily through his overlong fringe as the alienist executes an about-face, drops into the opposite chair.

“You were watching over your brother and sister when they were abducted, yes?”

James nods.

“Where was this? In front of your home?” Laszlo is unflinching.

A single shake of the head. “By the coalhouse,” James supplies to the scuffed and battered tips of his shoes.

Grim-faced, Theodore supplies the address of the coalhouse in question. In a neighborhood at the edges of the Five Points territory. 

Outside the door, someone laughs -- a rough, brutal sound that makes the listeners flinch. They are all locked in place, unwilling to breathe, afraid to disturb whatever it is that will happen next as Laszlo sits forward on the edge of his seat.

“And what happened?” His eyes are ochre-dark, unblinking. “Tell me precisely.”

James squirms on the chair beneath the serious, dangerous weight of Kreizler’s gaze -- glances up at him and then lets his eyes dart away again as he retells his story. “They were drawin’ pictures on the bricks with bits of coal -- Ellie got mad, as Christian had got dirty handprints all over her skirts. They were whining and she started to cry. And I was startin’ to tell ‘em off when the Gypsies came, and one got a knife to my throat --” And here he pauses to pull down the collar of his shirt, showing Laszlo the thin, reddened line across the column of his throat. “-- and another of ‘em grabbed Christian and Ellie.”

Laszlo lifts his eyebrows, the skepticism clear in his voice. “Your brother and sister did not fight? All of this happened in broad daylight and they left you to tell us all this?”

A shrug.

“Well then.” In another abrupt rush of movement Laszlo stands, gesturing to John. “My friend here is an artist -- if you describe these abductors he will create an image, which will be disseminated among the police force, to help us locate your siblings and the people who took them. John?”

And John fumbles for his sketchbook, lowering himself into the vacated chair and drawing out a stick of charcoal to sketch. He softens his voice, watching James over the pad of thick drawing paper as he asks “can you tell me, James, any details of their faces that you remember? What did they look like?”

Instantly, the boy flushes, his face knotting up in a scowl. “I don’t know…” He squirms on the hard, wooden chair. “They looked like Gypsies -- just, well, just like Gypsies look like!”

Laszlo’s voice breaks in over John’s shoulder. “Tall or short?”

“I don’t know.”

“A round face? Thin?”

“I don’t --”

“The complexion -- dark? Sallow?” Laszlo barks out questions. Insistent. “Surely you remember  _ something, _ James.”

“I don’t know! I don’t --” 

Five pulses, drowning out the sound of patrolmen and detectives in the corridor beyond the door. Blood hammering in inner ears and adrenaline like quicksilver, jangling their nerves, and something terrible and dark and manic unfurling before them in Laszlo Kreizler’s eyes. John gives up the pretense of drawing. Sara stutters a half-step forward.

“There were no Gypsies, were there?” Laszlo leans in close, his dark eyes burning, speaking quietly. Furious. “The stories you have been told, the fairy tales -- they are a convenient scapegoat. But a lie, nonetheless.” 

James’s shoulders tremble. His face twists again -- tears. Fury.

“Kreizler --”

John holds up a hand, silencing Theodore’s protest.

And Laszlo does not stop. His stern, mellifluous voice mets out truths and admonishments, uncovering the lies blow-by-blow. He is at his harshest now. “I imagine the wound to your throat is a fabrication as well -- self-inflicted. Clever, but barely more than a scratch. Not even enough to have broken the skin.” A pause. “What happened to your brother and sister?”

This time, when James speaks, his voice is quiet. Miserable. 

“I didn’t mean to.”

All at once, Laszlo straightens. Stumbles two quick steps backward, nearly tripping over John. “Commissioner,” he does not dare turn his head and look Theodore in the eye. Does not want to see the expression reflected there. “I do not doubt that if you search the area in question you will find the bodies of Christian and Eleanor Dreyfus.” Automatically, his fingers creep toward the sore, aching tendons of his malformed arm, cradling the wounded limb close to his chest. “Now. If my presence here is no longer required…”

He manages a vague inclination of his head -- a facsimile of politeness. His hands shake. The breath shudders and catches in his chest. He needs to be gone from this place. Now. Before he says something -- does something -- he will regret.

There is no making it past Sara, who demands answers, past worried, anxious John, past frustrated, baffled Theodore -- a mire of bodies. Too many people crowded together in the doorway, elbowing and crushed together in the little alcove taken up by Sara’s desk.

She locks the door. 

James Dreyfus -- who has likely killed his brother and sister -- is left inside.

“Now, wait just a goddamn second --” Theodore, too loud, snatches at the alienist, catching Laszlo by the arm and pinning him in place. “Kreizler, what the hell was that?”

Laszlo’s skin is crawling. Old, painful echoes match the thunder of his heartbeat. “You believed him, didn’t you?”

Theodore startles, taken aback. “Well, I …”

“I expected such  _ modern  _ minds would not fall prey to the fallacies of racial caricatures and prejudices.” And he is furious. Not at them. Not quite. But Laszlo feels his lips curling back in a snarl, disgusted. He is nine-years-old again, with his arm freshly broken and the wretchedness burning slow and heavy beneath his skin. And he is thirty-eight and his defenses are sharp and he will not let anyone make him feel shame. “Really, Comissioner -- if it had not been for the fact that the boy laid the blame on roving Gypsies, would you have taken his claims seriously at all? A brother and sister stolen in broad daylight at random, with no motivation, the elder brother left behind essentially unharmed to tell the tale of it?”

“Doctor Kreizler.” Sara tries to raise a protest, her voice soft. One small hand reaches out for Laszlo who hunches protectively in on himself, whose face is wrenched in a rictus of bitterness and old, unburied sorrow.

“There is no  _ sense  _ to it,” he insists.

“Laszlo.” John. A pair of strong hands on his shoulders. Fearful golden eyes. And Laszlo is trapped. “You’re trembling.” 

_ Zigeuner. _

“Now, look, Kreizler,” Theodore has planted his feet, has decided to be the immovable object to Laszlo’s unstoppable force, even as he sighs out a heavy, tired breath. “You’re entirely out of line here. This kind of behavior -- what in God’s name is the matter with you?”

_ Zigeuner. Mischling. Betrüger. _

“You should know,” Laszlo might just fly apart. The words are carved into him -- scarred on his bones. Echoing louder and louder in the hollow of his skull. “ _ Gypsy blood _ , yes?”

“Wh --” Theodore’s pale eyes blink fast behind his  _ pince nez. _ “You know I never meant…”

Laszlo destroys himself, then. Asks, bitter, “who’s to say that you were wrong?”

_ Ich hätte dich ertränken sollen. _ I should have drowned you. 

The world falls out from under him. There is John -- guiding him with firm hands fisted in the weight of Laszlo’s coat, murmuring curses. Sara, who grabs the first passing body with a badge and raps out several sharp orders in her clear-as-crystal voice, who ushers all of them into the empty records room with its stacks of yellowing paper and heavy crates of twine-wrapped case files.

“Doctor Kreizler --”

_ Es tut mir leid. I didn’t mean to... _

“Laszlo,  _ sit down.” _ The backs of his knees hit the chair and he crumples, folds onto the seat beneath John’s hands. “What are you on about now? You can’t possibly mean…”

But he can mean it. He can and he does.

_ “I must admit that a good bit of that mystical mumbo jumbo of yours concerning the nature of the human psyche today went quite over my head, Kreizler.” Teddy, all swagger and grinning teeth, slapping them on the back in greeting. Only John had noticed the way Laszlo flinched at the touch. _

_ And Laszlo, still so young -- clean-shaven and soft-faced -- had been immediately on edge. Had bristled and turned up his nose and proclaimed coolly “yes, I can certainly imagine it would have.” _

_ Christ, John loved the prickly little German student, but he could be such a  _ bastard _. He had dealt Laszlo a kick beneath the table for his manners. _

_ “Well now,” Teddy had laughed. Not kindly. “You would be a bit more informed than the rest of us in the mysterious wouldn’t you, though, being where you’re from.” _

_ And that had been dangerous territory. Kreizler might have been an ass, but Teddy was an idiot making remarks like that -- John had seen the threat, the spark in Laszlo’s eyes that would turn to wildfire in an instant. _

_ “Teddy --” he’d warned. _

_ “Drop of gypsy blood or two? All that business with psychics and spirits and telling fortunes --” _

_ And, oh Teddy shouldn’t have said that. Should have kept the needling and the friendly bullying to himself -- Laszlo was too serious, wouldn’t take well to the ribbing -- _

_ Laszlo had been on his feet in an instant, glint-eyed and bloodthirsty and issuing hoarse, angry challenges. _

John sees clearly the sharp flicker of anguish in the dark, jasper eyes.

_ “You know Teddy didn’t really mean anything by it.” He had sat with Laszlo on the lavatory floor afterwards, sponging the blood from his split lip, nursing the purpling bruises beneath his eyes. “You didn’t _ have  _ to fight him.”  _

_And John Moore had never been a wise man, but even then he knew enough not to say that Laszlo_ should not _have fought._ _That Teddy would have gladly called off the match, had he known the condition of Laszlo’s arm. That pride be damned, there was nothing Laszlo had to_ prove.

“ _ You heard what he said!” Laszlo had flinched away from the carbolic acid, the pain overbright and furious in his eyes. “What he called me!” _

Now, Laszlo clamps his hand around John’s wrist. Looks like he might be sick.“Don’t ask me, John,” he pleads.“Please. Don’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Sara reels, stricken. “I thought your family was…”

“My family.” The laugh that slips out then is short and sharp and bitter. “By now, Miss Howard, you should recognize there was nothing about my family that was as it appeared.”

“Kreizler.” There is an endless, silent sympathy in Theodore’s pale eyes. And at the same time he looks like he might lose his mind -- like he has been slapped full across the face. “You have no need to explain yourself.” And it isn’t so much granting Laszlo the chance to save face as Roosevelt himself doesn’t want to hear it, can’t bear to listen. “Perhaps it’s better...”

“No, no,” Laszlo gives a short, aborted jerk of his head and another terrible little laugh escapes. A miserable, wounded sound. “It is better this way -- no? All of my cards on the table. The truth laid bare at last for you all.”

_ “Laszlo.” _ John breathes his name, anguished, as he smooths a palm over Laszlo’s hair, cradles the soft curve of his cheek.  _ Oh, Laszlo _ he thinks. _ My poor Laszlo _ . And the alienist lets his eyes drift closed for just a moment, leaning into John’s touch. 

John would kiss away the furrow of pain between his eyebrows, would cradle and comfort him properly, but while Roosevelt has always afforded them more allowances than they have dared to contemplate, he does not dare overstep so far.

“The answer is very simple, really,” Laszlo informs them, plain-spoken and unwavering. He stares at the floor, unwilling to look any of them in the eye. “My father was impotent and my mother was a whore.” 

His pronouncement, presented in such bald-faced terms, sinks likes stones in a lake among them all.

Laszlo speaks tonelessly, without an ounce of emotion behind the words. “The risk of society scandal was significant, there were no other heirs; my father made a choice.” His eyes are glassy with unshed tears, distant. And his voice cracks, threatens to break -- but he barrels on through, does not stop talking. “He certainly did not let me forget it, though -- an illegitimate son. Half-Hungarian, which he hated. And half-Rom, which he hated even more.” 

John squeezes the nape of his neck, twines his fingers through the soft, overlong curls there. Every revelation, every glimpse into Laszlo’s dark and private history… it breaks his heart.

All at once, Laszlo seems to shake off the fug heartache and old hurt -- as though he comes awake. He looks exhausted. Faded and battered and miserable. “Commissioner, I believe my work here is finished. If there is nothing else --?”

Reeling, Theodore strips off his  _ pince nez,  _ massages the bridge of his nose. “No. No -- thank you, Doctor Kreizler.” He fumbles for the words; nothing seems sufficient. “Laszlo? I do apologize. Sincerely.”

Laszlo rises smoothly to his feet, managing a weak, thin-lipped smile that does not reach his eyes as he tries to gather the ragged edges of himself together. “It doesn’t matter.” He nods a farewell. “Commissioner. Sara.”

And then he is gone. Raw and wounded, coattails flapping like crow’s wings in his wake, as though he has not just dropped this revelation among them. 

John spares one last glance at Sara, at Roosevelt -- an apology, a commiseration -- and then he is off. Fairly chasing Laszlo out of the police headquarters.

“Laszlo!” The bitter winter chill stings the moment it slaps at his cheeks, snowflakes eddying on the air as John chases him down -- catches Laszlo on the half-frozen steps. “Laszlo will you just --  _ wait. _ Just a moment.” And, faced with Laszlo’s pale, stricken face, he crushes the alienist into a quick, fierce embrace that hides the brush of lips against a tender cheekbone before he takes Kreizler by the elbow, guiding him toward the waiting calash.

Stevie is quick to stub out his cigarette and sharp enough not to ask questions.

“Take us home,” John sighs.

The carriage creaks and rolls. Laszlo, bundled into the corner of the bench and sunk deep in his own mind, sways with every pitch. Reaching out, John silently twines their gloved fingers together -- feels the disquiet rolling off Laszlo in waves.

“You would not know it,” Laszlo murmurs all at once, his voice low, unfocused gaze lingering over the brick-and-mortar facades and anonymous bodies that stream past. “But my Hungarian is pitiful. I was forbidden to learn my mother’s language -- to learn anything about the parts of myself that were considered untoward, unspeakable.”

John squeezes Laszlo’s hand in his own, irons his mouth into a thin line to keep from interrupting with a myriad of tendernesses. Gentle reassurances. Laszlo doesn’t want them, won’t accept them.

“To any outside viewer, we were a perfect family of emigres. Well-cultured, members of good society, well-bred.” Vacant-eyed, the alienist leans into John as Stevie takes the calash tightly around a bend, lets himself settle into the solid curve of arm and shoulder, drawing some measure of security from the solidness of John. The reality of him. “I was a perfect son -- an intellectual prodigy, a virtuoso on piano, I knew how to be charming in parlor conversations.” Laszlo scoffs, almost genuinely amused at the thought. “Yes.  _ Me. _ I know. But it was never enough. My father did not ever forget what I was.” A pause -- the words trapped in his throat.  _ “Ein perfekter kleiner Betrüger. _ A perfect little impostor.” 

John has not forgotten the confessions quietly spoken. The admissions of a childhood rife with violence. Laszlo standing before the fireplace with his head bowed, the tears glistening in his tired brown eyes. And how much has Laszlo confessed to while concealing yet more?

“Laszlo -- that isn’t…”

He would undo it all if he could. Would unravel Laszlo’s battered, brutal history and rewrite it much more tender. Would paint him a kinder, happier life. But then, damn him -- the alienist would argue, he would not  _ be  _ Laszlo Kreizler had his past not unfolded as it had.

John thinks it isn’t the slightest bit fair.

“Please. Don’t.” Laszlo leans heavily against him, is silent for a long time. “My father was cruel -- he taunted me with names, beat me, reminded me again and again that I was worth nothing. A bastard. He shattered my arm.” There is a hard, fierce edge to Laszlo’s voice. The spitfire ferocity that John loves so profoundly. “But still, in the end he has no one else. He had to choose me, and the Kreizler name is now in the hands of an illegitimate Gypsy alienist, of all people.” This time, when Laszlo laughs, the sound is real. Satisfied. “He spent so long telling me that I was nothing -- worthless -- and yet I have found so much worthwhile in my life. The Institute, all of my work… You.”

“If we measure our worth in the things that matter, Laszlo, your value is incalculable,” John pronounces firmly, pressing a kiss to the softness of his hair. “You should not bear an ounce of shame for who you are.”

John would have imagined a softer, kinder life for Laszlo Kreizler if he could. But he would not have the man any other way.


End file.
